Dressed like the year's top Mary Kay saleswoman, Julie declares, "Eight newbies enter, six veterans return, and one legend prematurely exits the house." At least it wasn't immaturely. Well, as far as we know.
So then the previouslies remind us that the eight newbies started out allied against the six veterans. Then returning player Rachel won HoH, and she and the other veterans brought Porsche over to their side, which Porsche almost immediately screwed up by telling Keith about it. Then Rachel nominated Keith and Porsche so that Porsche could get four weeks of immunity in the form of the Golden Key. And then Dick bailed on the game for unexplained personal reasons, sidelining Daniele, while Keith started coming unglued. Keith and Porsche threw the Power of Veto competition and stayed on the block, each thinking they had the votes to stay and earn the Golden Key, but one of them is leaving tonight. Either way, I'm cool with it. Credits now include a shot of Dick on his last walk to the Diary Room, and we're back in the studio with pink-suited Julie.
Julie verbally runs down the previouslies for us before throwing us to a replay of last night's Veto ceremony, where Brendon and Rachel left Keith and Porsche as the nominees. It's Day 9 as Keith gloats in the DR that Porsche's on her way out and he'll get the Golden Key. Porsche, of course, thinks the opposite. And Rachel DRs that at this point it's smarter not to piss more people off than you have to. Is it possible she's learned something?
Keith privately tells Keith that she's a good person and if she stays she deserves it. Porsche proves to have even less game than Keith as she says that he's kept her fooled for a week, and DRs that you can tell he's lying when his lips move. But they shake on it and part, at least, frenemies.
The non-Keith members of the Regulator alliance -- Lawon, Cassi, and Dominic -- are discussing what to do, and they decide on getting rid of Porsche. Lawon is confident that Adam and Kalia will vote his way. Cassi DRs that Keith sucks, but it might be good to keep him on their side. It's just a question of making sure they have all the newbies on their side. And how hard could that be, since the firs thing they said was that they'd all stick together?
Up in the HoH room, Rachel and Jeff are discussing the importance of keeping Porsche and having her on their side so they can stand up against the newbies. Jeff suggests bringing aboard Adam, Shelly, and Cassi. "We just need a couple things to go our way, and it's back." Jordan's also there, but she's not contributing anything to the atmosphere but carbon dioxide.
The veterans' move is to start actually hanging out with the newbies, making friends by playing some game called "Big Booty" and throwing dance parties. Dominic's not fooled at all, watching the proceedings stone-faced. Although he does get into calling Brendon "Booky," Rachel's private nickname for him. So he's annoyed, deciding the party's over and dragging her upstairs so he can pout and whine at her about his hurt feelings until he decides he's done arguing. You know, like he does.
Coming back, Rachel and Brendon still appear to be on the outs over what Brendon calls the night's "conversation." She apologizes, and he says he just wants them to have a better relationship. "We have to learn how to communicate with each other," he dicks. And she... climbs into his lap and coos, "I love you, Booky." Oh, barf.
We then see Brendon talking to Shelly about the upcoming vote, assuring her that they're not after her and Cassi, so they want her to vote with them. Shelly's just happy to be here in the house. Jeff remembers that Dick drafted Adam, and decides they need to confirm what they think is his allegiance to them by letting him make up the name of their alliance. He figures it's just that easy. Jeff calls Adam over, and he suggests "Adam's Angels." Oh, I'm suddenly so embarrassed for him. "We'll work on it," is the veterans' response to that one. Good answer.
Cassi is talking to Shelly and Kalia about keeping Keith instead of Porsche. Kalia says she's following the majority, whatever that ends up being. Shelly asks what the advantage is of keeping Keith, and Cassi tells them Keith will be a target as soon as his Golden Key expires. Which could also be true of Porsche, as fast as things shift in this house, but whatever. Cassi also tries to bring Adam on board with the plan to keep Keith, but Adam's not sure what to do. Or at least that's what he tells us.
Time for the weekly viewscreen convo between Julie and the houseguests in the living room. Julie says that Dick won't be coming back, but she has a message from him, which she's been teasing before every commercial break tonight. Dick appears on the living room viewscreen, telling them all that he and his family and girlfriend are all fine, so stop worrying. I'm way ahead of him on that one. He says he never would have left if it weren't a personal emergency, but that's all he says about that. He apologizes to Daniele, saying they seem to get along best when they're playing Big Brother together, and tells the other houseguests to play hard and fight hard. As soon as he's done, Julie puts Daniele on the spot, asking her reaction. Daniele just blathers about hanging in there. After a long pause, Julie prompts, "No 'I love you?'" "Oh my gosh, that's so awkward!" Daniele bleats. Daniele says obviously she does, but mainly because she doesn't want to look like a jerk, which she even says. Julie moves on to showing them the clip package of the week's Have/Have-Not competition, focusing on Keith milk-humping his teammates (complete with slo-mo) and then asking Dominic a pointless question to which Dominic provides a pointless answer. Julie's question is to Adam, and how he as a superfan feels about playing against the veterans. Adam talks about he and Dick both being into "METAL," but now they're competitors. Julie acts like that's the smartest thing she's ever heard.
Moving on to the pre-vote business, Julie gives Keith a chance to plead his case to the house. He tells Porsche she rocks, and tells the rest of them, "Have fun, don't take things personally, and remember it's only a game." Porsche stands up and thanks everyone and says she hopes she gets to stay. Well, that was dull. Julie says it's time for the vote. Of course the nominees don't get to vote, and Rachel will only vote if there's a tie. As always, the most certain vote is sent to the DR first, and Dominic votes to evict Porsche. Brendan votes to evict Keith, as does Jordan. Cassi votes to evict Porsche, so we're going to commercial with a 2-2 tie, for maximum suspense and commercial-watching encouragement.
When we get back, Lawon is the to vote, and he and his two-tone blazer unsurprisingly votes to evict Porsche, whereas Jeff votes to evict Keith. They could have put off the ad break for another two votes. Daniele is called in , and before voting, she insists on saying that she does love her father and has been worrying about him every day since he left. And then she "unfortunately" votes to evict Keith. The first swing vote comes in, and Adam votes to evict Porsche. Some people in the studio audience groan. Kalia, who Keith called a traitor, votes to evict him. And so does Shelly. The audience groans get louder, and Julie goes right to the viewscreen to give them the tally, first reminding them that the evictee will have to leave right away. And she announces that Keith has been evicted in a 6-4 vote, meaning Porsche has the Golden Key. Keith recovers quickly, giving mic-rubbing hugs all around before heading out, saying he'll see everyone at the finale.
So while he and Julie get set up in the studio, it's pretty quiet in the house. Except that Shelly remarks to some of the newbies, "Somebody's gonna get an ass-whupping at the end of this, I bet." Out in the studio, Julie mentions to Keith that he was pretty cocky about having the votes. Keith owns up to that, and admits that he's shocked at the outcome. He admits that he might have played things differently, and Julie says he's one of the first players ever to throw a Veto competition while nominated. Of course, the Golden Key had something to do with that, and Keith says he thought he had enough people behind him. Which he did, but some of them were pushing him. He now admits that he got played. Julie reminds him that she warned everyone at the beginning to be careful about picking their partners, and asks how it went so horribly wrong. Keith says that Porsche went right to the other side as soon as the veterans came in. Julie brings up his plan (remember the diagram?) which obviously didn't work, and asks how hard it is to play the game. Keith says his strategy went out the window as soon as the twists came in. Which is why you don't diagram a whole strategy before you even go into the house, idiot. He says that he's an emotional guy and didn't want to fall for Porsche, because, as Keith puts it, "She hot." Julie agrees with that, and plays the farewell messages.
Cassi tells Keith she's sorry he's gone. "You came in here to play The Dating Game...you dug your own grave." Lawon agrees, "You acted a fool," and again calls him a time bomb. "That's why you're sitting out there. BOOM goes the dynamite!" Rachel gloats that she and the other veterans used the newbies against him. Porsche says Keith deserves it. "You tried to play me, you tried to work me. And one last thing to say." She points at her t-shirt, which says, "You can look but you can't touch." Keith, to his credit, laughs all through this. Well, now he can go back to his church and resume preaching form the gospel according to Shallow Hal.
The HoH competition looks like a mini-golf game with a single putting green. Outgoing HoH Rachel doesn't get to play, and neither do Golden Key holders Daniele and Porsche. All it requires is for each player to hit the ball down the putting green, as close as they can to the numbered slot labeled 1 without going into the water hazard. Dominic, who goes first, gets a six, which puts him in first place for now. Adam's 8 is not enough to unseat Dominic, so Adam's out. Cassi goes , and her ball goes in the water, so she's out too. Shelly also overshoots, but not by quite as much. Lawon takes a hard swing and gets his ball straight in the water. Kalia's ball lands to Dominic's in the 6 slot, so they get to share the winner's circle for now. But then Jordan gets a 3, and since Rachel picked the order so all the newbies would go first, we're going to have another veteran for HoH this week no matter what. The camera doesn't even follow Jeff's ball, but he's out. Brendon shoots his ball right into the bunker, I think on purpose, and since he was the last to go, it's Jordan's week to be HoH, and she and Jeff are safe for the week. Hugs all around, of course.
And then there's an ad for Harry Potter, so we can all take a moment to reflect on Jeff's homophobic tirade about Dumbledore this week. I only mention it because it'll probably never actually get aired on the show.
Everyone's back in the living room so Julie can ask Jordan how it feels to win HoH for the first time. Jordan says it feels good. "Thanks to Jeff and them for lettin' me win." Jordan says it's like the last time they were on and Jeff let her have it, which is an awfully gracious way of letting Julie know she was WRONG WRONG WRONG. Julie asks Porsche how the Golden Key feels, and Porsche monotones that it feels really good and she's happy she gets to stay in the house longer. One almost believes her. Viewer questions: "Shelly, how hard is it to be away from your daughter?" Shelly's like, ain't no thing. Okay, obviously not, but what did they expect? The question is for Adam: "Who's your favorite character?" Adam chants, "Donna Martin graduates," metal-roaring it the last time around. Thanks, viewer, that was fascinating.
Julie reminds us that we'll find out which duo Jordan will nominate on Sunday, the PoV competition will be on Wednesday, and there'll be another eviction and another Golden Key Thursday. I'm looking forward to that the most. The eviction, I mean.
Eavesdropping time, which, which all the cross-talk and the loud theme music and the muting of swears, is just about as illuminating as...well, as usual.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.